The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to providing variable length field Fibre Channel addresses for use in routing information between information handling systems.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Information handling systems such as, for example, source devices provided by server devices, sometimes store and retrieve data in target devices included in Storage Area Networks (SANs), and those source server devices are coupled to the target devices in the SAN via a Fibre Channel (FC) fabric that includes a plurality of FC switch devices. The FC switch devices in the FC fabric utilize FC addresses to route data packets received from a source server device to a particular target device, with the FC address identifying a particular FC switch device that is directly coupled to the target device to which the data packet is directed, which allows any of the FC switch devices in the FC fabric to route that data packet through the FC fabric to that particular FC switch device so that it may be provided to the target device. Conventional FC addresses are provided with 24 bits, with a first byte (8 bits) dedicated to a domain identifier that may be used to identify each FC switch device in the FC fabric, a second byte (8 bits) dedicated to an area identifier that may be used to identify each port/link in an FC switch device, and a third byte (8 bits) dedicated to an session identifier that may be used to identify each session provided via a port/link in an FC switch device.
The use of conventional FC addresses provides limits on FC fabrics. For example, FC fabrics are limited to 239 domains/FC switch devices, as the 1 byte/8 bits of the FC address dedicated to the domain identifier provide 256 possible domain identifiers (28=256), with 17 of those domain identifiers (00 and 0xF0-0xFF) reserved. Similarly, the FC switch devices in the FC fabric are each limited to 256 ports/links, as the 1 byte/8 bits of the FC address dedicated to the area identifier provide 256 possible area identifiers (28=256), and any port/link provided by the FC switch devices in the FC fabric is limited to providing 256 sessions (e.g., with target devices), as the 1 byte/8 bits of the FC address dedicated to the session identifier provide 256 possible session identifiers (28=256).
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved FC address system.